To save webOS, HP must interest developers

30 April, 2010 (07:01) | Songs and Music, Technology News | By: Technology Expert

Hewlett-Packard has purchased Palm for $1.2 billion or $5.70 per share. As Palm desperately needed a suitor, a buyout is not a surprise. The question is: will HP be able to save Palm's webOS platform?

Earlier, some thought HTC would buy Palm for its patent portfolio, for protection against Apple's lawsuit. If that had happened, most expected webOS to die. HP, on the other hand, has no such intention.

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According to Brian Humphries, HP’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, HP's intent is to "double down on webOS."

HP's presence among smartphones has been pretty much non-existent. The last phone they did was the HP Glisten which was a Windows Mobile smartphone. They also do not have (yet) an Android phone, so there's no conflict there, unlike, for example, HTC.

Palm made many mistakes in rolling out webOS devices, including tying themselves to Sprint for too long, missing a window of opportunity with Verizon, and adding no new devices since the Palm Pixi (Plus models don't count). Contrast that with the multitude of Android devices that have been released.

HP's bank vault should help in these matters. In order to save webOS, however, HP also needs to get developers more interested in coding for webOS. Palm made big mistakes there are well, not releasing a native SDK at launch.

Smartphones are really more "app phones" nowadays. We played with the HTC HD2 on T-Mobile. The device is powerful, and HTC's Sense on top of Windows Mobile corrects a lot of the missing functionality of the OS. What it does not fix however, is the fact that there's no burgeoning App Store on that platform. That is an issue HP will need to face down, as well.